The Demand for Nicotine Replacement Therapies

This paper is the first econometric study to examine the determinants of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) demand. Pooled cross-sectional time-series scanner-based data for 50 major metropolitan markets in the United States covering the period between the second quarter 1996 and the third quarter 1999 are used in the analysis. Fixed-effects modeling is employed to assess the impact of NRT prices, cigarette prices, and other determinants on NRT demand. The estimates indicate that decreases in the price of NRT and increases in the price of cigarettes would lead to substantial increases in per-capita sales of NRT products. The average own-price elasticity of demand for Nicoderm CQ, Nicorette, and Nicotrol is -1.4, -1.5, and -1.1 respectively. The average cross-price elasticity of demand for Nicoderm CQ and Nicorette is 0.68 and 0.81 respectively.

Determinants of Smoking Cessation: An Analysis of Young Adult Men and Women

Substantial econometric efforts have been devoted to examining the impacts prices and tobacco control policies have on smoking propensity and intensity. However, little is known about the effects prices, smoking restrictions, and other influences have on smoking cessation. This paper uses longitudinal data from the Monitoring the Future Surveys, augmented with cigarette price and policy-related measures to estimate smoking cessation equations for young adult males and females separately. The estimates clearly indicate that increases in cigarette prices would lead a significant number of young adults to quit smoking. In addition, policies restricting smoking in private worksites increase the probability of smoking cessation among employed young adult females.

Using Strategy Improvement to Stay Alive

We design a novel algorithm for solving Mean-Payoff Games (MPGs). Besides solving an MPG in the usual sense, our algorithm computes more information about the game, information that is important with respect to applications. The weights of the edges of an MPG can be thought of as a gained/consumed energy -- depending on the sign. For each vertex, our algorithm computes the minimum amount of initial energy that is sufficient for player Max to ensure that in a play starting from the vertex, the energy level never goes below zero. Our algorithm is not the first algorithm that computes the minimum sufficient initial energies, but according to our experimental study it is the fastest algorithm that computes them. The reason is that it utilizes the strategy improvement technique which is very efficient in practice

Evaluating trends in abundance of immature green turtles, Chelonia mydas, in the Greater Caribbean

Many long-lived marine species exhibit life history traits. that make them more vulnerable to overexploitation. Accurate population trend analysis is essential for development and assessment of management plans for these species. However, because many of these species disperse over large geographic areas, have life stages inaccessible to human surveyors, and/or undergo complex developmental migrations, data on trends in abundance are often available for only one stage of the population, usually breeding adults. The green turtle (Chelonia mydas) is one of these long-lived species for which population trends are based almost exclusively on either numbers of females that emerge to nest or numbers of nests deposited each year on geographically restricted beaches. In this study, we generated estimates of annual abundance for juvenile green turtles at two foraging grounds in the Bahamas based on long-term capture-mark-recapture (CMR) studies at Union Creek (24 years) and Conception Creek (13 years), using a two-stage approach. First, we estimated recapture probabilities from CMR data using the Cormack-Jolly-Seber models in the software program MARK; second, we estimated annual abundance of green turtles. at both study sites using the recapture probabilities in a Horvitz-Thompson type estimation procedure. Green turtle abundance did not change significantly in Conception Creek, but, in Union Creek, green turtle abundance had successive phases of significant increase, significant decrease, and stability. These changes in abundance resulted from changes in immigration, not survival or emigration. The trends in abundance on the foraging grounds did not conform to the significantly increasing trend for the major nesting population at Tortuguero, Costa Rica. This disparity highlights the challenges of assessing population-wide trends of green turtles and other long-lived species. The best approach for monitoring population trends may be a combination of (1) extensive surveys to provide data for large-scale trends in relative population abundance, and (2) intensive surveys, using CMR techniques, to estimate absolute abundance and evaluate the demographic processes' driving the trends

Collective and fractal properties of pion jets in the four-velocity space at intermediate energies

Experimental results are presented for study of collective and fractal properties of soft pion jets in the space of relative four-dimensional velocities. Significant decreasing is obtained for mean square of second particle distances from jet axis for pion-proton interactions at initial energies $\sim 3$ GeV in comparison with hadron-nuclear collisions at close energies. The decreasing results in power dependence of distance variable on collision energy for range $\sim 2 - 4$ GeV. The observation allows us to estimate the low boundary of manifestation of color degree of freedom in pion jet production. Cluster dimension values were deduced for pion jets in various reactions. Fractional values of this dimension indicate on the manifestation of fractal-like properties by pion jets. Changing of mean kinetic energy of jet particles and fractal dimension with initial energy increasing is consistent with suggestion for presence of color degrees of freedom in pion jet production at intermediate energies.Comment: The conference "Physics of fundamental interactions". ITEP, Moscow, Russia. November 23 - 27, 200

Spectroscopic distinction between the normal state pseudogap and the superconducting gap of cuprate high T_{c} superconductors

We report on broad-band infrared ellipsometry measurements of the c-axis conductivity of underdoped RBa_{2}Cu_{3}O_{7-d} (R=Y, Nd, and La) single crystals. Our data provide a detailed account of the spectral weight (SW) redistributions due to the normal state pseudogap (PG) and the superconducting (SC) gap. They show that these phenomena involve different energy scales, exhibit distinct doping dependencies and thus are likely of different origin. In particular, the SW redistribution in the PG state closely resembles the one of a conventional charge- or spin density wave (CDW or SDW) system.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Hidden covalent insulator and spin excitations in SrRu2_2O6_6

The density functional plus dynamical mean-field theory is used to study the spin excitation spectra of SrRu$_2$O$_6$. A good quantitative agreement with experimental spin excitation spectra is found. Depending on the size of the Hund's coupling $J_H$ the systems chooses either Mott insulator or covalent insulator state when magnetic ordering is not allowed. We find that the nature of the paramagnetic state has negligible influence on the charge and spin excitation spectra. We find that antiferromagnetic correlations hide the covalent insulator state for realistic choices of the interaction parameters.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Higgs mode and its decay in a two dimensional antiferromagnet

Condensed-matter analogs of the Higgs boson in particle physics allow insights into its behavior in different symmetries and dimensionalities. Evidence for the Higgs mode has been reported in a number of different settings, including ultracold atomic gases, disordered superconductors, and dimerized quantum magnets. However, decay processes of the Higgs mode (which are eminently important in particle physics) have not yet been studied in condensed matter due to the lack of a suitable material system coupled to a direct experimental probe. A quantitative understanding of these processes is particularly important for low-dimensional systems where the Higgs mode decays rapidly and has remained elusive to most experimental probes. Here, we discover and study the Higgs mode in a two-dimensional antiferromagnet using spin-polarized inelastic neutron scattering. Our spin-wave spectra of Ca$_2$RuO$_4$ directly reveal a well-defined, dispersive Higgs mode, which quickly decays into transverse Goldstone modes at the antiferromagnetic ordering wavevector. Through a complete mapping of the transverse modes in the reciprocal space, we uniquely specify the minimal model Hamiltonian and describe the decay process. We thus establish a novel condensed matter platform for research on the dynamics of the Higgs mode.Comment: original submitted version, Nature Physics (2017). arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1510.0701